What's your town / city doing?

[redcard]

Resurfacing stretches of the roads through the town. At last.

We must have picked up 2mph last weekend when we went from the clapped-out rutted tarmac onto the spanking new shiny stuff.

There's 2 painfully short stretches of shiny tarmac on my route. The other 8 miles is bumpier than the face of the local oiks.



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[mangaman]

yours is an interesting one, because Chichester is of a size that could be ideal for cycling, and the roads south are congested both morning and evening. And yet......the one way system is horrible, for cyclists and pedestrians, but also for drivers. You'd have thought they would try and make something of the land between the railway station and the centre of town, but, no, it's a traffic scheme.

I agree - it's a bizarre road layout.

Behind the 4 main shopping streets are a few quiet residential roads and a million car parks.

The one way system is dangerous enough in a car (around The Hornet turning into St Pancras with cars comung at you from all over.

You see very few cycle commuters - if you do you need to be very assertive and take up the whole lane on that system - more people use the pavement and miss it out.

As you say the A27 blocks off the South of the city from a lot of small but cheaper towns that are commutable by bike.

Selsey, for example, is popular with NHS staff as it is cheap.
The B road from Selsey to Chichester is said to be Britain's busiest B road (interesting factlet of the day) but no-one uses it as it so busy - but also as it ends at a roundabout with the A27

You could get under the A27 on the canal towpath but that leads you to the one way hell around the railway and bus stations. And there are a couple of bridges that leave you on the edge of town.

Meanwhile the council build off-road, shared facilities like mad. Centurian Way, the off-road path to the Witterings and now one to Selsey is being built.

The trouble is these are mixed-use, often off road and not direct.

I suppose they are directly targetting the tourist pootling market which is a shame as Chichester, although small, is an old fashioned county Town that people commute into rather than a typical South-East town where people commute out of.

Luckily I can walk to work in 15 minutes or cycle in about 5 missing out the one way system (he says smuggly)

 

[mangaman]

Croydon council is building a cycle hub at East Croydon station.

Out of interest Gaz, what do they mean by a cycle hub?

Is it something useful?

 

[mcshroom]

Nothing much round here (my 'local' borough council covers an area about a third of the size of Greater London). In fact I couldn't even find any policy stuff on their website at all. We have some decent segregated rail paths, but the vast majority of cycle provision in Copeland is designed for tourists. The back roads are all perfectly commutable (when the council aren't gravelling them) so there's not a lot of need for infrastructure, although it is weird that we don't seem to have a single ASL in the whole borough.

 

[gaz]

Out of interest Gaz, what do they mean by a cycle hub?

Is it something useful?

Going by other hubs, it is a place where you can securely store your bicycle, hire bicycles, get repairs, buy cycling products and get guidance around town and about cycling.

 

[PurplePoodle]

I remeber awhile ago there was a campaign about cycling here and giving cyclists space but seems to have died out.. Where I live is apparently a walkers welcome town so maybe they don't want cyclists anymore!

 

[Bigsharn]

What's your town/city doing?
Going backwards is what:
FWIW I was one of the 106 who wrote in to try to save it.

Me too... I went on the newly "updated" Blossom Street the other day...

 

[Norm]

I don't get your last subtitle at all, Sharn, where you say "And my favourite bit..." The road lane includes the cycle lane.

 

[rusky]

The council first carried out a wide consultation with residents about proposals for cycle and pedestrian facilities on the Old Shoreham Road in 2009 (view plans from the 2009 survey) and 66% of respondents felt that cycle facilities were needed. At the time a decision was made by councillors not to proceed due to concerns around cycle user safety.

 

[rusky]

This is what they are in the process of doing..

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/downloads/bhcc/roads/Consultation_plans.pdf

 

[Bigsharn]

I don't get your last subtitle at all, Sharn, where you say "And my favourite bit..." The road lane includes the cycle lane.

It's the width that made me laugh. They expect a bendybus to be able to fit through that incredibly narrow bit at the start of the lane (This is the route most college-goers use, so at peak times is incredibly busy)

 

[Norm]

You miss my point, Sharn. The width of the vehicle lane includes the entire width of the cycle lane so the road lane cannot be narrower than the cycle lane.

 

[Philk]

Coventry appears to be doing nothing re cycle safety.....if fact theyre creating a number of shared use areas where buses, pedesrians and cyclists can mix.
The first share space was opened next to the old colin campbell pub 4 months ago, so far 1 person has died.

 

[Bigsharn]

You miss my point, Sharn. The width of the vehicle lane includes the entire width of the cycle lane so the road lane cannot be narrower than the cycle lane.

Isn't the whole point of a cycle lane, that it's a seperate lane of traffic which motorised vehicles aren't supposed to occupy?

 

[Norm]

Isn't the whole point of a cycle lane, that it's a seperate lane of traffic which motorised vehicles aren't supposed to occupy?

Nope. There are some like that, with solid lines around them like the Bus Lane at the start of that video, but anyone can enter the "cycle" lane as it has only broken lines.